Toshiba Satellite C55-B5353 Review

By Tech For Pennies

December 25, 2014

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Toshiba Satellite C55-B5353 looks like a basic, almost boring laptop with its Pentium processor, 15.6″ display and half a terabyte hard drive. But boring doesn’t necessarily equate to bad. And I certainly don’t want to judge a laptop just like that. First, we have to examine it more…

The essentials

The quad-core Intel Pentium N3530 processor has a 2.16GHz base frequency and respectable 2.6GHz turbo speed. It’s still a Pentium, though, and it remains in the entry-level category, below the popular Core i3s. Everyday computing on these budget processors is of course fine, but using them for demanding stuff (and heavy gaming) isn’t a good idea because the system would eventually bog down.

Toshiba Satellite C55-B5353 has 4GB memory installed and as with most Toshibas, it’s a non user replaceable type RAM. For a low-level computer, however, the said four gigabytes should do. Web browsing and video streaming aren’t affected, only if you used the laptop for advanced tasks like image/video editing you wish you had more RAM.

The hard drive in this model is a 500GB 5400RPM one. A common sight on budget models, it offers enough space for thousands of holiday photos and more. Of course, if you really enjoy storing all your data on your computer, you could use more space. But with this price, a half a terabyte drive is an OK choice.

The laptop is powered by Windows 8.1 (64-bit).

Display and graphics

Cookie-cutter screen is what you usually see in cheap notebooks. That’s also true for
Toshiba Satellite C55-B5353. The display is 15.6 inches big with 1366×768 resolution. That resolution is curse for many which I totally understand. But take a look at the price tag and you’ll understand why they couldn’t install Full HD in this model.

Check out what other people are saying about this laptop on Amazon.com.

The Intel HD (Bay Trail) engine handles the graphics of this computer. It can be used for limited gaming, with lightweight games such as League of Legends working rather smoothly on minimum settings. Same can be said about World of Warcraft and CS:Go. Newer and heavier titles, including the Battlefields, will have FPS closer to 0 than 20 on this rig.

Connectivity

Toshiba Satellite C55-B5353 has three USB ports. One of those is USB 3.0 for some extra speed. There’s also support for older monitors since in addition to HDMI-out, a VGA output is likewise installed.

A 10/100Mbps Ethernet port and a regular WiFi adapter with Bluetooth 4.0 take care of your networking needs.

There’s a 16x DVD writer installed on the system. Also a memory card reader for SD, MMC, SDHC, microSD, miniSD and SDXC cards is available.

The laptop contains a HD webcam and microphone for Skype and other video chat software.

Miscellaneous things

I consider the weight of this laptop, 4.8 pounds, quite a good one for 15.6 incher. Official operating time wasn’t listed, but 4-cell batteries usually have around 4 hours life with a single charge. Also keep in mind the battery is integrated one and can’t be replaced by the user.

There’s a 10-keypad on the non-backlit keyboard’s right hand side.

As a bonus, you’ll get a trial for MS Office 365. So Excel, Powerpoint and Office are at your disposal for free – but only for one month. After that you must pay if you want to continue using them.

Conclusions

Toshiba Satellite C55-B5353 is a cheap laptop cabable of dealing with everyday computing tasks at ease. There’s enough power for web browsing, movie watching and video chatting. Also very low-level gaming is possible when eye candy and resolution are kept at minimum. Points must also be given for good networking options. It’s an affordable laptop, and if you don’t require lots of features and performance, you don’t really have a reason to pick anything fancier than this Toshiba.